


candid

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10740630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: It was an accident, developing a habit of taking candid pictures of Dan, but Phil didn't regret it.





	candid

**Author's Note:**

> Again, a huge thanks goes to Gisele for reading this over for me.

There was a moment.

It wasn’t a particularly important moment. Phil was leaning back in a living chair, breath ever so slightly shallow from the work of moving. His phone was perched in one hand and there was a cardboard box of knick knacks between his knees and it was wholly unremarkable.

Except Dan was in front of him, cheeks rosey as his shirt and hands locked around another box full of decorations, of tiny splices of their life. His eyes were unfocused and tired, but he was framed by the walls of their new apartment, a view of this new beginning they were sharing, of all they’ve already done together.

Memories were between his hands and promise for new ones were laced in his every action.

And Phil wouldn’t remember it. He knew that, an too familiar feeling of knowing that this moment was just a tiny one that would one day fade from his memory like so many already lost and he wouldn’t even know to miss it.

But in that moment, he knew to save it.

He took the picture with a smile on his face, watched Dan jump from his stupor with hazy blinks and the box falling from between his hands to land on a couch cushion. And laughter rang in the air of their new flat—new _home_ —as it fell from Phil’s lips and Dan joined in.

\---

It had started by accident.

Dan liked to argue when he stated it, explained that he’d never meant to start a habit of taking candid pictures of Dan without a smile or a peace sign to hide behind. He’d protest that there was no way to accidentally take the first picture, or the second, or the third, or any of the others have that.

But Phil remembered the first time it happened clearly, a memory vivid in his mind.

It hadn’t been a picture on his iPhone, hadn’t even been a moment they’d shared in person.

Dan had been but a fuzzy image on his computer screen, his image so close but everything Phil would grow to appreciate in later years a mystery. His warmth too far to be felt, his laughter crackling with poor audio quality, the gleam in his eyes muted by the webcam and screen between them.

In that moment, there was no laughter to hear or eyes to see. Dan had been curled up on his side, face squished in his pillow, limp with sleep. His eyes were closed and his lips curled into a smile that made Phil wonder what he was dreaming of, that made Phil want to wake up next to him every day if he could.

Warmth spread across England, fuzzy in his chest, and though he could feel his own eyes drooping with fatigue, he found himself hitting the print screen key, pasting the image into paint, saving it to a collection of pictures Dan had shared with him.

And he fell asleep with Dan’s face still on his computer screen and resolution that one day he’d hold the boy he loved, cuddle him as they slept, heavy on his mind.

\---

Dan liked to pretend he hated the creepshots, as he called them, that Phil took.

But every time they came up, a blush would climb the column of his neck and stain his cheeks and there would be a smile curling at the corners of his lips and Phil knew he liked it. Liked the sentiment behind it, the tradition, the knowledge that from before they even met, there were moments Phil wanted to capture.

That through a series of pictures on Phil’s phone, on his computer, there was importance weighted in all the simple moments they would have forgotten.

That even the simplest of days were beautiful enough to capture, to save.

So they both knew they weren’t actually creepshots, no matter Dan’s adamance about using the term. They both knew it was something more, something that made Dan smile that soft, giddy way that brought Phil back to their first Skype calls and all the nerves laced within them.

Something that made Phil keep taking them.

\---

The first time Dan had caught him taking a picture, it was with giggles ringing in the air and young love bubbling in their chests. Their cheeks had been pink with affection and cold, and their eyes gleaming with wind-induced tears and joy and it was with shaking hands that Phil had pulled out his phone and snapped the shot.

But it was one of his favorite pictures.

Dan was lying by his side, framed in snow, hands hidden in mittens that were covering his frostbitten cheeks, fluffy hat pulled over his head and dotted with flakes still falling from the sky. There’d been a smile on his face and snowflakes tangled in his eyelashes and Phil had scrambled to take off his own mitts, to snap the picture so we wouldn’t miss that moment.

Words yet to be spoken were on the tip of his tongue. He captured them in an image instead.

With only inches between them, though, Dan had noticed, had turned his head to the camera and Phil caught a second picture of that, eyes wide and smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. An image of simple, shocked affection.

Of love.

Dan had pulled off his own mitts and reached for Phil’s phone, muttering questions punctuated with affectionate nicknames that had Phil not even caring if Dan got his phone. Not caring about anything but that moment, but the boy lying next to him and the laughs they shared and the affection between them so deep rooted but so new.

He let Dan take his phone, watched him stare at the picture for a moment, and hand it back.

“It’s cute.” was all he said.

Phil thought a better word was beautiful, but he didn’t argue. He just leaned over and kissed the snowflakes from Dan’s cheeks.

\---

There was a moment, somewhere in their story spliced between moving to London and starting DanAndPhilGAMES that Dan had turned to him and asked which of the pictures was his favourite.

And Phil had stuttered out a response about how he didn’t really have a favourite. Because he didn’t.

But there were times when he had favourite types of pictures.

For a while, they were the in-person pictures. The ones he took with his phone while Dan was next to him, sharing space and air and memories. The ones that would bring him back to moments when Dan was lying next to him in bed, or curled up at his side on the couch, or sitting beside him in front of a camera.

That was back when time spent together was rare and most of their relationship was spent with a country between them and their faces on each other’s computer screens.

Then it was pictures of Dan at his flat, back when university textbooks still plagued his life and a dorm room was Dan’s house but he treated Phil’s place like home. When he was a visitor who fit so perfectly into the space, hunched over the dining table and law books or sitting on the couch with a video game controller in his hands.

At that point, living with Dan, having a place to call _theirs,_ calling Dan his flatmate instead of a visitor, was just a fantasy and he lived it through pictures that showed the world as though it was reality.

It became reality, though. And at that point, pictures of Dan going about his daily life in the Manchester flat they shared were his favourites, because they were a fantasy made reality, a relationship moving forward. They were of Dan eating at the breakfast bar or editing videos leaning back on his bed or distracting himself from responsibilities with a game that had him cursing at the screen.

Phil liked the simplicity of it. The unromanticized view of their relationship. The small things their past selves never would have imagined.

Tiny reminders that they were more than young lovers who giggled their way through conversations. That they’d come so far and there was an endless expanse of growth lying before them.

But when Dan had asked which were his favorite, it hadn’t been any of those.

It had been the ones taken in the earliest days of living in London, when cardboard boxes still littered their flat and the radio show was something brand new. The ones that illustrated them being happy and full of potential, in a city full of new opportunities. They were following their dreams, with BBC, with YouTube, with each other.

His favourite part, though, was that it was _their_ home. Littered with boxes, yes. But also with memories. With promise to make more. It wasn’t Phil’s home up north or Dan’s home in the south, it was a city for them, _their_ home to enjoy, to build, to share.

He told Dan as much that day, trying not to be too sappy, though it was difficult with Dan curled up at his side, a warm weight against his chest.

Dan’s response had been a hum as though it revealed something deep or mysterious about their relationship.

Phil was certain all it meant was that he loved watching their story pan out.

\---

Dan liked their story too.

Phil knew for many reasons. Because there were days when Dan would get sappy and wrap his arms around Phil’s waist and whisper about how much he loved it. Because there were moments when Dan would tell it to someone with passion lilting his tone and love gleaming in his eyes. Because there was evidence of it all over the flat they called home and sometimes he’d catch Dan staring at it with a smile.

But he knew it most from the days that weren’t sappy or happy or even mundane.

Dan liked their story most when an existential crisis was creeping up on him and he was trying to ignore it with reminders of the good he’d done, the meaningful aspects of his life. He liked it with a desperate need for it to give him purpose, for the reminder of what he’d accomplished and who he helped and how the love they shared may not be enough for an eternity of being remembered, but it meant so much more than that ever would.

On those days, Phil would settle next to him on the couch, draw Dan from his hunched position so he was sinking into the cushions instead. He’d wrap one arm around Dan’s shoulders and hold up his phone with the other hand and swipe through an album of pictures he’d taken in simple moments he didn’t want to forget.

There were some from Skype calls and some from the early days of stolen moments together. Some from Manchester and some from London and infinite number of new ones added to their story since.

Some were from Japan, of Dan looking out from Mount Fuji or staring up at cherry blossom trees or looking out at the city with awe shimmering in his eyes.

So many were of Dan working on TABINOF, passion for their project alight in his eyes and a desire for perfection spurring him on.

Others were from TATINOF. First with the UK, then America, then Australia as a backdrop for their achievements, their success, their story.

And by the end sometimes the looming crisis would remain. But often Dan would simply sink into Phil’s arms with a sigh heaving his chest and words on his tongue that made Phil’s chest flood with warmth.

“I love you,” he’d say. “I love our story.”

There’d be a pause where Phil would respond with an “I love you, too,” and a kiss to Dan’s head.

But the final words would come as a whisper, a mumble against Phil’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Dan would say. “For making every moment meaningful.”

\---

Phil didn’t _make_ every moment meaningful, though. He just captured them, and their meaning.

Because it all had a purpose. Perhaps not something intrinsic, but something just as valid. Filled with love and happiness and everything that made Phil think his life was the best he could ever hope for.

And some of the most meaningful moments were those that didn’t become pictures.

Phil didn’t try to capture that new moment, with Dan laughing in front of him and cardboard boxes littering the floor and a new space to make their own surrounding them. He didn’t let himself fall out of the harmony of joy in the air, or look away from the smile on Dan’s face. Not as he settled on the couch cushion nearest Phil, not when they both fell silent.

They stared at each other. At the walls the surrounded them. The posters they’d brought with them. The view from the nearest window.

“We actually have a new house,” said Dan.

Phil turned to look at him, gaze flicking over the image of Dan lighting up his phone. “We do,” he agreed.

It went unspoken that they didn’t have a new home, because home was something else completely.

Home was Dan. It was them, together, and every moment they shared.


End file.
